By Dickson Otieno

I have written this for the longest time possible. In my mind. I didn’t know I was doing it. The pieces just came together. Slowly. One day at a time. Bringing together memories and thoughts from the past and from the present. Building up dreams of the future too. My brain has been full of activity. This story and that story. This thought and that thought. This memory and that memory. Fragments here and there. Piecing up together. Joining each other like Lego. Coming to birth.

Parental involvement 

When I am not listening to VeggieTales and other silly songs, I am usually reading the Onion, America’s Finest News Source.  One recent article on the Onion, (it’s a satire publication) was about a teacher by the name Jon Broderick who has been reaching out to promising kids that just need a little guidance since 1996, and to be honest, none of them has really blossomed into anything. Quoting the teacher, the Onion says that “Every year, I tell myself I’m going to be the reason a struggling teenager excels beyond all expectation, and every goddamn year, I’m wrong.”

What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask my kids in my Sunday school class the other day.

Their little hands are wiggling up in the air, the mostly six-year-olds eager to share their dreams with me.

“A doctor,” one girl says, and another and another.

“A pilot,” a boy shouts, and of course there are several more.

The most traumatic transition I have gone through in the recent past is moving from campus life to working. That is folly to a normal adult who is used to working to earn a living but it is the truth. I landed a job this past holiday which was quite a task. I was supposed to work from eight to six with no real break in between. Half the time was spent on my feet attending to all kinds of people. The first day on the job I was so beat, I could not stand up for about an hour once I got home.

  • Is on his last semester of his 8-4-4 and age is catching up. Either that or he has thrown caution to the wind. He has no idea what courses he’s taking. If he has, he has no knowledge of their titles, leave alone their codes. He never missed classes in earlier years but today, attending lectures is the exception, not the rule.
  • Will remember that registration forms are filled on the day before exams, she will then scribble on some course registration form very fast, forge the signatures then fill in an examination course form. It will then hit her that she has not paid her fee yet. She’ll rush to that tiny National Bank and stand in an endless line. Back in the day, she paid her fee a month before the opening date, a good faithful freshman.